editing

Coffee with a friend. An hour absorbed in a great book. Sitting behind a glowing screen editing images. Which of these is not like the other?

In this video tutorial, I want to show how easy and quick a clean edit can be. Whether you’re a working pro or a happy hobbyist (or some combination of the two, like me!), there’s really no reason to trade living your life for hours sitting at the computer to post-process your images.(…)

I am quite drawn to bright, vivid, colorful photos. I think of children and their love of color and wonder. They are naturally bright and happy and I love to portray that in my photos (since I mostly photograph children).

Ninety-nine percent of my workflow is done in Lightroom, so I’ll show you how I edit a photo, step by step in Lightroom (5.6).(…)

Here are two simple Lightroom edits using my new “Authentic Set” available in the Clickin Moms Store. Use code AUTHENTIC to save $15 through November 21st.

Here is my original photo I imported into Lightroom as a RAW file.

1. Import photo.

2. Tweak white balance. You can either tweak by eye, or use the eye dropper. Move the dropper around until you find the most correct white balance to start with. You can see the change of white balance in preview module(…)

One of my very favorite and often used tools in Adobe’s Lightroom editing program is the clone tool.

I love how it can very quickly clean up my images and add a bit of polish. The clone tool is found in the develop module in LR, just under the histogram and above the basic panel. It looks like a circle with a small arrow extending to the right of it.

by Mickie DeVries
I think most people that use Lightroom are familiar with presets used for editing in the develop module, but did you know that there are also export presets?

Export presets allow you to save settings that you use frequently to size your photos. I know that I upload my photos to various websites for display and for printing purposes, and all of these have different optimal settings. It’s hard to remember how my image needs to be sized for(…)

by Mickie DeVries and Vironica Golden
Vironica and I met while taking the Fine Art and Visual Expression workshop in April of 2013. I admired her style from the moment I saw it. Our FAVE group of full participation ladies was quite active during our run, and many of us have kept in touch and supported each other since finishing the class. Vironica and I have talked through Facebook almost daily since shortly after FAVE ended. Our conversations started with photography,(…)

Just as important as it is to have good cameras, and lenses that will take beautiful photos, there are also other necessities a professional or an avid hobbyist needs to have: a monitor calibrator. After coming home from a shoot, most photographers will almost automatically plug in their camera or card to their computer to view their images. Next to purchasing that monitor or computer, and that editing software that will optimize editing, the next thing to purchase(…)

by Elena Blair
Darkening the background of an image can really create depth and draw attention to the subject. I will show you a quick and easy way to darken the background of an image using curves in Photoshop.

Here is the original image with all my usual edits except the darkening of the background:

Now I will create a curves layer and bring down the midtones by grabbing the very middle of the curve and pulling down to the right bottom corner(…)

by Frayda Breitowitz
The content aware fill tool in Photoshop is a very sophisticated yet very simple to use tool that has saved me countless hours of time in post production. It was new to Photoshop CS5, so if you’re using CS5 or CS6 and you don’t already use it, prepare to be floored!
Like it’s name suggests, the content aware fill tool fills in a selected area using a complex algorithm of the pixels surrounding it to remove the unwanted area.(…)

by Frayda Breitowitz
Have you ever wondered how to get the nicely blended backgrounds in newborn prop images without having to position your subject 12 feet from your backdrop and shooting at f/1.2? Well, there are always 100 ways to do one thing in Adobe Photoshop, but this is how I blend backgrounds in post.
First, we’re going to blend the main line separating the backdrop from the floor.
1. Open the image in Photoshop (I’m using Photoshop CS6, but this should work(…)

In this before and after tutorial, I am going to walk you through how I edited this image start to finish. I love the expression in his eyes and how he is biting his lip just a little bit. Melts my heart, but I am his mama, so I might be slightly biased!

My workflow starts in Adobe Lightroom 4. I import my images and do all of my RAW processing there before importing my photos into Adobe Photoshop(…)

by Jean Rhim
Adobe Lightroom is an amazing tool that can help you make your images better, your workflow faster, and the whole photo editing process more fun. I feel fortunate that I was introduced to it early, months before I even touched Photoshop, because it became the center of my workflow. Not only do I do a great deal of my editing through Lightroom, but Lightroom is also where I organize, sort, and prepare my images for print. Lightroom is(…)

Sometimes liquifying an image in a subtle way can make a big difference and may help if you accidentally catch the wrong angle when photographing your subject. The secret to liquifying successfully is to use it in moderation and not to alter how a person looks. Here’s a quick look on how to use this powerful Photoshop tool!

Thank you Jennifer for this great tutorial! What a great trick to have on hand!

by Ann Westerman
Lately I have been loving to shoot images specifically for processing in black and white. I love my black and whites to have good tonal range and a lot of contrast. What I mean by good tonal range is I want my image to have deep shadows, a range of mid-tones and some bright highlights and I usually want those bright highlights to fall on my subject. I love for my subject’s face to have shadows, mid-tones and(…)

Have you ever wondered how to go about adding actions and textures to your images in photoshop? Meghan Aileen with The Shoppe is here both sponsoring and writing today’s tutorial. She is sharing how she uses actions and textures in her photography and make sure to read to the bottom for the fun prize she has for you!

Every once in awhile, the CMteam groups together in order to bring our members and followers a really special offering! Today, we are thrilled to present to you an amazing breakout session- CMteam Breakouts: All Access Pass. With your registration fee of $50 you will receive access to 5 separate mini sessions, all at the same time. A total of over 150 pages of PDF information, along with several videos and the opportunity to ask questions of each presenter in(…)

by Emma Wood
Being a black and white lover and having it be my passion, you may think that the decision would be an easy one. However, nature provides us with such an abundant color palette, such fantastic, gorgeous tones in so many variations that it’s not always as easy a decision for me as you might think.

So how do I choose? I usually have an idea of what I’m going to do, or whether I will convert to black(…)

by Lora Swinson
This is a little effect that I love to use on some of my images if I feel they are a little flat. It is similar to The Orton Effect, but I’ve changed a few of the blending modes to switch it up a little bit. I like rich colors and tones and this helps me bring my style out more. It works on some images better than others, but when it works, it’s magical!

by Melissa Gibson
There are several factors that go into creating a lovely black and white image. Of course, there is one very important factor that we all know about, lighting. No matter how hard you try, you aren’t going to get a beautiful black and white if you haven’t used the light well. Personally, I love conversions that are hazy and backlit but I also love side light and contrast.